At the annual conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers, no small number of technical papers cover issues surrounding driver interactions with features on the car dashboard. Touchscreens, in particular, are a hot topic. You can find SAE papers with impressive-sounding titles such as, Touch Interactive Display Systems: Human Factors Considerations, System Design and Performance […]
Microcontroller Tips
Clock IC, quartz-crystal reference combined in the same package
Silicon Labs has expanded its Si5332 any-frequency clock portfolio with new versions combining the clock IC and a quartz crystal reference inside the same package, simplifying board layout and design. The all-in-one Si5332 solution guarantees reliable start-up and operation over the lifetime of the product, unlike traditional solutions that source the clock IC and crystal […]
Teardown: Anki Cozmo, distant relative of Vector
Cozmo is a palm-sized robot from San Francisco-based Anki, the same company that makes an intelligent racing robot system called Overdrive that we’ve torn down previously. Cozmo is actually an earlier version of an Anki robot called Vector. Vector has more capabilities in the area of artificial intelligence, thanks to its use of a processor […]
Cellular LTE-M development kits feature LPWAN software-defined technology-agile modems
Digi International today announced the immediate availability of the Digi XBee3 Cellular LTE-M development kits, featuring Digi’s next-generation smart cellular modem. This LTE-M certification, to be followed by the certification of Digi XBee3 Cellular NB-IoT in October 2018, allows Digi to bring one of the first LPWAN, software-defined technology-agile modems capable of offering Cat-M or NB-IoT […]
Qorvo first to be certified for Zigbee Green Power v1.1 multi-sensor and generic switch extension
Qorvo announced it has been awarded certification for the multi-sensor and generic switch features of Zigbee Green Power v1.1. These new features greatly expand the types of smart home sensors that can be powered by energy harvesting, eliminating the need for batteries or enabling ultra-long battery life. The multi-sensor extension to the Green Power specification significantly […]
PCIe SSD controller supports standard NVMe and Open Channel technology
Silicon Motion Technology Corporation released the SM2270, a complete PCIe NVMe SSD controller solution which offers high performance, high capacity, high reliability and low latency SSD storage for enterprise and data center applications. The dual-mode SM2270 is a complete SSD controller solution with customer specific or turnkey firmware that can support Open Channel storage implementations […]
24G SAS expanders for server, networked storage allows use of full PCIe Gen 4 bandwidth
Microsemi Corporation announced its new SXP 24G SAS expanders, the industry’s first 24G SAS (SAS-4) devices for server and networked storage. 24G SAS doubles the bandwidth of the storage interconnect, which enables the full bandwidth of the PCIe Gen 4 to be utilized by the storage interconnect. This new family of devices is specifically designed to […]
NVMe-oF SSD converter controller targets cloud, data center apps
Marvell announced the industry’s first NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF) SSD converter controller, the 88SN2400, for cloud and enterprise data centers. The 88SN2400 controller is designed and optimized to convert an NVMe solid state drive (SSD) into an NVMe-oF SSD, providing a revolutionary architecture that increases utilization and scalability of SSDs within the data center to […]
HLS flow software now handles FPGA components
Achronix Semiconductor Corporation announced availability of an optimized High-Level Synthesis (HLS) flow from its partner, Mentor, a Siemens business, for its FPGA technology products. The integrated development environment enables designers to quickly go from C++ to FPGA using Mentor’s Catapult HLS and Achronix’s ACE design tools. Initially used for 5G wireless applications to reduce the overall development […]
Storage controllers handle 24G SAS and PCIe Gen 4 Tri-mode connections
Microsemi Corporation announced the SmartROC 3200 and SmartIOC 2200 storage controllers designed specifically to meet the demanding storage performance and flexibility requirements for the next generation of data centers. NVMe SSD usage in enterprise servers continues to accelerate through innovations in drive reliability and serviceability, as well as new standards such as SFF’s Universal Backplane […]